Smiley's
by Proverbial Pumpkin
Summary: K gets an unexpected glimpse into Tohma's musical life before NG.


_A/N: I'm never gone for good! I literally just finished this so I may edit a tiddly bit in the future. So...  
_

* * *

It had to be a hell of a bar, I decided – we'd been driving for almost an hour. But then Tohma had been driving, so we'd covered well over an hour's worth of ground. The further from inner Tokyo we got, the more conspicuous I felt inside his bullet of an Eclipse – through smaller highways and reasonable cities, away from the affluence of our built-up corner of the commercial world. "What's this place called?" I asked, straining my eyes towards the building lights ahead. We were in a business district of a small city, not the sort of place I'd expect to have a bar elite enough for an hour-long drive.

The blue-grey of the night grazed diagonally across Tohma's face as he took a left turn onto a secondary road, a road clearly familiar to him. He answered carefully. "I'm not sure what it is these days," he probably lied, as if he'd rather not say. I was more curious than ever.

He'd taken me to a lounge once that wasn't in any phone books and didn't have an actual name. He'd flashed a card outside the back of the poshest building in Tokyo, and up the stairs we'd gone to a large open room where I was torn between a desire to eat everything and a fear of touching anything.

Was this, now, another elite no-name bar? Surely not an hour out into the Tokyo suburbs. Wait, was it my birthday? It was not. Were we covertly going to a strip club together? Tohma had tracked down his cousin in one once, and literally smacked him in the face. So probably not.

Tohma seamlessly paralleled the car into a space and took a second to fold his arms over the wheel, looking up out of the windshield to the window and faintly flickering lights one floor above us in a shady, brick building. SMILEY'S, it said in red-orange neon above us. If this was a front for a place with real money, it was a convincing front. There wasn't much color left on the thin metal railing to the outdoor stairs, and Tohma stiffly brushed the paint chips and rust off his hands when we reached the top. I waited behind him, expecting a furtive bouncer to attend to Tohma and usher us in, but then I realized Tohma was just taking his time. Finally, he turned the brass knob and with some effort, swung open a heavy door.

It was a dive joint. Not smoke-filled and hopefully not a brothel… just run-down and dim. Tohma maneuvered through the laughing crowd to a table in the corner, not even stopping to order a drink. He'd put most of the room between us and the bar. I'd known Tohma to deal with some shady characters before, and the possibility occurred to me now that maybe I was playing bodyguard for the night.

"I take it you're meeting someone," I said.

"Who could I possibly need to meet here," he answered.

In the last corner of the place, ignored, was a small opening between the tables that barely allowed for an upright piano and bench between the tables and back wall. Tohma seemed more interested in it than in talking. I turned around for a better look, creaking my chair, but there was nothing special about it. It was ready to be junked, a red-brown color that had smudged over the maker's name during years of use. Every flat surface on it was marred by some scrape or cup ring, and a pipe wire stuck out where the middle pedal should have been. Its topmost lid was warped with humidity or heat, or age, and exposed a half-inch of the yellowed keys behind it, like dead things in a dungeon.

I creaked back into place just as the lights clicked off, except at the bar, which stayed illuminated. In Tohma's usual haunts the lighting would have dimmed down to a gradual low, but this place didn't have sort of technology. Our eyes adjusted as a big man in a worn sports jacket, some ten years older than me, waved his hand about at the front, signaling for quiet. In his other hand he held a glass of beer.

"Come on boys, come on. Okay. As most of you know we're mourning a real loss tonight, and – jesus, son, don't mix that with that, you'll be puking it til next week – and I thought it was right that someone ought to say something, remembrance-like. Jo Ri was the reason this place ever existed. He's the reason we know each other. In fact he's got one or two old friends come back tonight to pay their respects – "

Here he lifted a glass in Tohma's direction, although how he could have seen us in the dark and in the back, I couldn't say. Tohma's eyes narrowed, not displeased exactly, but wary of all the heads now turned back to see him. He nodded an ever so slight acknowledgement to the man.

" – and if that doesn't speak to the sort of man my father was, well, nothing will. So enjoy yourselves, God rest the soul of the finest businessman ever to grace the streets of Kosuge, and see you again tomorrow."

There was a collective genial response as the man stepped out of the cheap lighting. By this time more than a few people in the bar had realized Tohma looked familiar, and the place seemed to shrink around us as several men craned for a second look, exclaimed something to a friend or another, and rose out of their chairs. Five or six of them were upon us.

"Excuse me, but do you know who you are?"

"My son wants to be you, would you sign this beer for him?"

"Back up gentlemen," a voice cut through. "Some of us knew this man before he was famous."

It was the large man who'd spoke in front, smiling as he jostled a customer out of his way. Tohma stood as though to make a small bow, but the man gripped one hand over Tohma's arm, beamed into his face for a moment, and then wrapped Tohma's entire upper body in a bear hug that seemed to mortify him. The secret service man in me was prepared to act, but Tohma extracted himself and recovered. Another man clapped him on the shoulder as though they were familiar. It had been some time since Tohma had needed to verbalize the no-touching rule.

"Hello Ri-san. I was rather hoping to slip in and out," he said by way of greeting.

"After what, ten years? Look at you," said Ri, who I took to be the son of the former owner. "We thought we'd never hear from you again. Plenty of more folks from your time are still around, want me to flag them down for you?"

"I wish you wouldn't," Tohma said quickly, glancing at me as though I'd already seen too much. "When I read your father died, I only wanted to see that the place was alright." I watched, idly amused, as Tohma tried to maneuver the meeting into more familiar, businesslike territory. "If you need any assistance I'm happy to – "

"Thanks friend, but we're not about to go under. Now if you have a twenty thousand yen or so to spare, old Smiley could use some work." He jerked a thumb towards the decrepit piano in the corner. The men flanking him snorted as though that were an understatement, nudging one another in a shared joke.

Tohma looked from them to the piano to the sheepish bar owner. "Am I to understand that you've let that piano fall into disrepair?"

The men who seemed to remember Tohma personally laughed, some raising their eyebrows as though interested in the new owner's escape route. The man shrugged. "We're not quite the musical joint we were when you were around, Seguchi. We had it tuned not long back…"

"How long."

"Just a couple years. Maybe six."

The genuine offense Tohma took at this revelation made me examine the upright piano again, now that the lights were back up. It looked like it had could never have been in good shape; certainly it wouldn't have passed for new even a decade ago. Now that they'd made the association for me, it really did look like a grinning thing: a ruddy complexion with aging yellow teeth in a wide smile.

Tohma had his checkbook out. Ri flapped his hands to stall him. "Don't you want to inspect it? Survey the damage? Maybe…" he lifted an exaggeratedly conniving eyebrow, "play a quick tune?"

"No thank you."

Another man chimed in. "It would make our day, Seguchi-san."

"Be just like old times, Seguchi-san."

"Why are you harassing him?" I demanded. "He's offering _you_ money."

Tohma closed his eyes in resignation, as if my entry into the conversation had been inevitable. "Ri-san, this is my colleague, K Winchester of NG Studios."

"Winchester?" His crinkly eyes turned towards me for the first time.

"He's from Los Angeles. K-san, this is Ri-san. The son of my first employer."

"American, huh? We don't get a lot of girls around here," Ri informed me, as though my being American made this relevant information.

"I… okay?" I looked for help from Tohma, who looked deadpan at the man.

"Will you play?" Ri asked him again, plainly. "If you do, I'll take your money and get it tuned. Fix every last note if you give us one more song. Heck, you'll be saving its life."

I realized then that he must have known Tohma better than I realized, at one point in Tohma's former life. Tohma had never met a piano whose fate he was disinterested in; the man had hit our keyboardist where he'd never say no. Tohma frowned. "Are you trying to blackmail me by _not_ taking my money?"

The man looked pleased, like this vaguely-annoyed Tohma was the one he remembered. "You're the only piano man here, friend. Give us a treat. Although, I guess maybe you don't play for treat these days." He smiled the first intelligent smile I'd seen from him since we'd arrived. "I guess these days, Seguchi Tohma is out of price range for a place like Smiley's."

His comment was punctuated by the decisive scrape of Tohma's chair as he stood up and tossed his checkbook and pen on the table in front of me. I rolled my eyes as he stalked to the piano; it wasn't often he let himself be provoked that easily. But he nudged out the stool with the lace of his shoe, in a smooth practiced movement I almost missed. He pressed two keys as he sat down – nothing. He rapped on them again, harder, giving the owner a look of disgust when the raspy tones sounded, barely clinging together. Tohma tried a few more chords and inched a bit on the seat, getting reacquainted with an instrument he used to know.

The bar was slightly abuzz – either because they knew Tohma from years ago, or they knew him from their television sets, or because, I suspected, he was simply the most interesting thing to stop in their town in some time. He began playing at a controlled, walking speed; he absolutely refused to dazzle Ri's customers for him. But it was a satisfied, deliberate piece with slip notes sliding into key from just outside it, creating an early Nashville feel I'd never heard Tohma play. There was no slurring, no pedal. He was well attuned to the venue, the audience, and the limitations of the instrument, which had developed a bit of a plink over the years. And for all that, the music was charming, like stepping into what remained of acoustic playing in the American '50's.

The men who only knew Tohma by celebrity watched in rapt attention, but the rest, the older ones, smiled along from their tables and slowly settled back into their conversations. For an unreal minute and a half, it was almost as though Tohma was like any other town musician. His suit stuck out like a million dollars in the sea of single-layered cotton shirts, and he comported himself like the most worldly person in the room, and I supposed he still had me, the blond lumberjack of an American with him… but the expanse between him and other men was bridged, if only for a few moments, while he played an old song they seemed to appreciate. And for a few moments, Tohma didn't have his nose in the air about it. Anyone who walked in at that moment would know he'd played that instrument many times before.

When Tohma finished, there was a round of appreciation and a general consensus that a full set should follow. But Tohma stood up, returned to our table, and addressed a clapping Ri while retrieving his checkbook. I handed him his pen.

"Despite your best efforts," Tohma said, "that instrument isn't completely destroyed yet." I recognized the familiar swivel-pause-swivel-pause-swivel of Tohma's pen as he whimsically adding a series of zeroes on the check. "You will take this money and refurbish it. Every time I pressed a key I could practically feel the felt inside. It's completely worn in some places and swelling in others. And you have to fix that casing." He cut off Ri's attempt to respond. "And for god's sake, tune the thing and hire someone to come play it once in a while."

"I get it, I get it," Ri said, raising both hands in a surrender before taking the check gingerly.

"Are you ready, K-san?"

"Whenever you are," I said.

Tohma needlessly straightened his jacket and pocketed his checkbook. "Good-bye, Ri-san."

The bargoers seemed disappointed as they realized we were off. Ri held out his hand, and smiled when Tohma shook it. "I really thought you were long gone, gone for good." He held Tohma's hand in his grip an extra moment, looking thoughtfully at him. "You've certainly changed."

"Oh?" Tohma looked him steadily in the eye. Of course he'd changed in the last ten years; I'd watched some of it happen. But I certainly hadn't been around this long, not for this chapter. "Changed in what way?"

The man seemed to consider Tohma's Italian wool suit, his aloof expression. But the ragged old piano stood alive in the corner, its plinking melody still in the customers' ears, and Ri glanced at the folded check in his hands before putting it in his pocket. "In an okay way, friend," he said. "In an okay way."

* * *

I buckled up next to Tohma, who started the ignition. "Well, I was not prepared for that," I said as the Eclipse quietly hummed to life, the cool back-lighting of the dashboard illuminating his face.

"Hm," he said, checking the rearview mirror.

"You said you'd started out in a bar, but I figured it was like a jazz cocktail, or dueling pianos with crazy tips." I glanced at the middling buildings we passed on our way back down the street we'd come into town on. "I'd never pictured you even setting foot in a place like that. You always seem so… thoroughbred."

"Thank you."

"Are you glad you came?"

I didn't expect him to answer with much care, but a moment passed before he spoke. "Yes," he said. "And I'm glad you came with me."

That was unexpected. To be honest it hadn't been clear to me if Tohma just wanted company on the drive, or if this aging town held a nostalgia for him he wanted to share with someone. "I was wondering about that," I admitted. "Why am I part of this excursion, exactly?"

"You met those men, K-san," he said. "They're not fans, they're people. They're… they knew me when I was this completely different person. And they heard me play before Tokyo did, and they loved it. I knew if they asked me to play tonight…" He seemed embarrassed.

"You wouldn't be able to say no?"

"Correct."

We drove in the quiet for a few moments, me trying to work the rest of it out. As soon as I opened my mouth, though, he cut me off. "I wanted you there," he said deliberately, almost defiantly, "because that's the most terrified I've been in front of a piano in years."

"You're joking," I laughed. Terrified of those good-natured, adoring, middle-aged men? Stage fright, when there was no stage to be frightened on? "Well if it were anyone but you, I'd say that's almost cute." He didn't dignify that with an answer.

"For what it's worth Tohma… I think they seemed more than happy to see you."

He was silent a minute more, and then the tight line of his mouth relaxed into the slightest smile. He spoke with an embarrassed pleasure, quiet and genuine, that I hadn't heard from him all night.

"They did, didn't they?"

* * *

 _A/N: The end! Just a tame little glimpse into my established Tohma/K fantasy. Hope you liked it. The fifth and final chapter of Kumamoto is next on my list, followed by Advice from Hitchcok which believe it or not, I have NOT forgotten._


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